Just before midnight, the quiet of a wealthy Poughkeepsie home was shattered by gunfire.
Inside the Tower family residence on Hyde Park Road, servants rushed upstairs after hearing several shots ring out in rapid succession. Behind a locked bedroom door, they found a scene of horror: 16-year-old Alfred Tower had been shot to death in his room.
Moments later, the servants discovered his mother, Mrs. A. Edwin Tower, dead in her own bedroom, a pistol still in her hand.
What had begun as an ordinary night in one of Poughkeepsie’s finest homes ended in a murder-suicide so shocking that newspapers called it one of the most ghastly tragedies the city had ever known.
Poughkeepsie Mother Kills Her Son and Self
POUGHKEEPSIE, New York. — The most sensational and ghastly tragedy in the history of Poughkeepsie occurred shortly before midnight, when Mrs. A. Edwin Tower, the wife of a multi-millionaire of this city, shot to death her 16-year-old son Alfred and ended her own life by the same means.
The deed was committed while the woman was laboring under a fit of insane murder and suicidal mania, which attacked her Sunday, and was the result of a physical and mental disorder, which, though not serious, had troubled her for some time, and made her husband and friends more or less apprehensive.
Occurred in Beautiful Home
The murder and suicide occurred in the beautiful home of the Towers, situated on Hyde Park Road, a short distance from this city. It was shortly before midnight, and Alfred and several of the servants had retired. Mr. Tower was at his mill, called the Furnace, and Mrs. Tower was in her room, believed by the other members of the family to be preparing to retire.
Suddenly in the stillness of the household five shots, fired in rapid succession, startled the servants.
One of the men employees rushed upstairs to Alfred’s room, where the sound of the shots came from.
He attempted to enter, but the door was locked.
Rushing back downstairs he notified the butler, who joined him at the bedroom door and the two broke down the barrier.
A Ghastly Spectacle
Entering they found the body of the boy dressed in pajamas lying partly on the bed, on his back. Four bullets had lodged in the body and another had entered the back of the head.
Blood was dripping from the sheets onto the carpet, and the room showed evidence of having the scene of a struggle between the mother and boy.
The bullets in the body would have been sufficient to have caused death, but the maniacal woman, to make sure of her purpose, fired a fifth bullet at close range into the boy’s head shattering the skull.
Second Ghastly Sight
The now hysterical servants rushed into a recreation room adjoining Alfred’s, and the room occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Tower. Not finding the woman there they hastened to her bedroom.
A second ghastly sight met their gaze. The woman half dressed in a loose dressing sack, lay half upon the bed, much in the same position as the murdered son, her stockingless feet hanging over the side of the bed.
Grasped in her left hand was a large pistol.
The wound in her head showed she had dealt herself destruction.
The bed was covered with blood.
Driven almost wild by this second sight of horror, the servants called up the Tower Furnace by telephone and informed Mr. Tower of what had occurred.
Other servants informed Dr. Tuthill of the tragedy.
He and Mr. Tower arrived at the home at the same time.
Going upstairs they found the remains of the woman and boy in the position in which they had fallen. The coroner was notified.
Mr. Tower Nearly Insane
By the time he arrived, Mr. Tower was almost insane from grief and was running about the house as though wild.
The perpetrator of the tragedy planned the crime with that cunning peculiar to the maniac. The idea of ending her son’s life before she blotted out her own, had evidently not been a sudden impulse, for she had made careful preparations, one of which was the selection of two revolvers with which to perform the work.
The .32-caliber revolver with which Mrs. Tower slew her boy was empty and after the shooting she had carefully laid the empty weapon on a stand near Alfred’s bed.
The horse pistol, with which she shot herself, was a much larger weapon and was one which had lain about the house unused for years.
The coroner is making an official examination, but this will be merely perfunctory, as there is every evidence that the double tragedy was the result of the woman’s insane mania.
Source: The Evening Times. Washington, D.C. April 11, 1902.
